Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(25)

While such groups as these are not wholly uncommon in the South, this one has taken on a freshly sinister element. According to our sources, underpinning much of the rhetoric is a new theology espoused by the Reverend Davis, one that promises the end of the world and the rise of a new age on Earth—one wherein the True Believers, True Americans, or anyone else appropriately affiliated, will find themselves exalted among the new gods.

On the one hand, this is not wildly different from the Adventists, who believe in a Second Coming that will destroy all the infidels in a lake of fire—but elevate the faithful into Heaven, beyond the clouds. On the other hand, the Adventists don’t believe there’s anything they, personally, can or should do to bring about this result—except to spread their gospel and trust that when it reaches enough ears, then the end shall come (in accordance with Matthew’s recollection in the New Testament, chapter 24).

However, through some means yet unclear, Davis’s disciples believe in some mechanism that can bring the promised apocalypse to a head, luring their cosmic overlords from somewhere out beyond the stars . . . and they intend to make use of it.

I wonder who their mysterious “sources” are. I wish there were more details. I wish it’d named the Methodist and Presbyterian ministers in question, because I’d bet my life that the Methodist they report is the man who murdered the priest.

I want to sit and think about this, because it’s important, somehow.

The article is right: There’s only so much difference between believing God is up in heaven, and believing there are gods somewhere out in space. It’s a very fine line indeed, and a seductive message at its core: God loves some of us, and is coming for us—and he’ll destroy everything and everyone we don’t like.

It’s a great galactic game of “Just wait until your Father gets home!”

Upon rereading my earlier notes on the subject, maybe that does sound like the kind of god a hateful man would pray to. A petty man, anyway. Someone who feels small, and wishes to feel big—someone who is full of fear and uncertainty, and would prefer to be full of power. Oh, there’s a dangerous lure there, yes.

Is that what’s luring me, too?

No. Something else, though; yes, the idea of a community does appeal to me. I haven’t had one in so long, I’ve forgotten what it feels like. I scarcely remember what it felt like to teach Sunday school to the children in Mrs. Frank’s classroom before the sermons. I can’t recall the weight of the board-back books in my hands, the smell of the chalk and old paper, the feel of little hands on my arms—petitioning for my attention. I don’t recall how warm and ordinary it felt to sit in church and listen to the pastor, or not listen to him, and let my mind wander—but to feel myself surrounded by like minds, in a comfortable place, and hear things I generally agreed with (but didn’t think too much about). I must concentrate hard to recall the stiff pews, the thick old Bibles with the worn corners and dog-eared pages, and the jasmine perfume of the ladies who sat behind me in the widow’s row.

All of that is gone, and has been gone for decades.

? ? ?

After the Bordens died, I had a smaller version of that community . . . for a precious little while. I had you, Emma, and I had Nance. We had Doctor Seabury, for a time. Maybe that was it, that was all of us, and the things we had in common were terrible, damning things.

But God, at least I wasn’t alone.





Ruth Stephenson Gussman




BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA SEPTEMBER 25, 1921


Pedro’s place is not very different from my daddy’s, except that it’s an apartment instead of a house—and it’s a whole lot quieter, even though there’s people living all around us, and we hear them all the time. I hear people cooking, babies crying, children playing, and it’s all music to me—because nobody makes me go to church.

It’s a little smaller here, and it’s in a different neighborhood where a lot of people speak Spanish . . . but that’s not such a big thing. It’s been helpful to us so far, actually. Daddy’s sent men around looking for us, but our neighbors pretend they don’t understand any English and they don’t know where we live. Our building locks downstairs, and you’ve got to have a front-door key to come inside. I like that. It makes me feel safe.

Safer, anyway.

I used to feel safe with you, Father Coyle, at Saint Paul’s—and now I don’t, and I never will again because you’re gone, and I feel like your church is at the center of a storm. But when I do decide to go to church, that’s where I go . . . coming in through the back door, and looking over my shoulder the whole time. I go there to remember you, and all you tried to do for me. I go there because it calms me to sit in that chapel, on those pews, and I listen to the new fellow talk real low and quiet in Latin . . . and I don’t know Latin any better than I know Spanish (just a few words here and there), but it’s a comfort to me, anyhow.

When I sit in that chapel, in the warm and half-dark place lit up by rows of candles and the light that spills inside from the colored glass . . . I can hardly remember the stars, streaking past me like the drag marks of nails on somebody’s skin.

When I sit in that chapel, I don’t pray because I don’t know if anyone’s listening or not, and it feels a little like lying. But I don’t feel alone there, and that’s something.